Brian O'Driscoll's Lions career has produced incredible highs and crushing lows but, while everyone (including the player himself) assumed the 2009 tour to South Africa would be the 30-year-old's last, there may yet be another chapter to this story.

In 2001, the 22-year-old |O'Driscoll scored a magnificent solo try as the Lions stunned Australian in the first Test at the Gabba (their last Test victory). In 2005, after leading Ireland to the Triple Crown the previous season, O'Driscoll was named Lions captain but his tour to New Zealand was ended by the combined spear tackle of All Blacks captain Tana Umaga and hooker Keven Mealamu after two minutes of the first Test.

Those two series were lost 2-1 and 3-0 respectively and the Lions go into the third Test against South Africa on Saturday facing another 3-0 whitewash. O'Driscoll will not be in Ellis Park to see that encounter having flown home this morning having failed to recover from the concussion he sustained in last weekend's bruising three-point defeat in Pretoria.

However, the 30-year-old centre, wonderfully aggressive and skilful in both Tests, has thoroughly enjoyed his latest Lions experience and watching the 35-year-old second-row Simon Shaw put in a man of the match display last Saturday has whetted his appetite for having another go against Australia in 2013.

“It's really disappointing and the weird thing is that I look at a third Test that doesn't mean anything from a series point of view but it means everything from the point of view of still playing for the Lions because I never saw myself still playing for another four years,” said O'Driscoll. “I always felt that this would be my last Lions' tour but you see Simon Shaw and think: 'well, there's hope. I don't know, maybe I've been a little bit tainted by a little bit of success this year.”

That success saw O'Driscoll captain Ireland to their first Grand Slam in 61 years before playing a central role in Leinster's first Heineken Cup triumph. Thus, failure with the Lions has clouded a wonderful year.

“That's the thing. What I hate is that essentially that's the last chapter which will prey on your holidays a little bit. That's the taste that's left in your mouth; it's defeat in a series with the Lions, having won the Slam and the Heineken Cup.

“I've been involved in three Lions' tours and I've lost the three of them. That's not the way this year I saw it ending up after the first two Tests,” added O'Driscoll.

“But do you know what? Even having lost it I'm really glad that I got to experience everything up to half-way into the last week. I've had a brilliant tour. It's still been an incredibly enjoyable tour, way more than the other two. ”

One thing O'Driscoll definitely did not enjoy was South Africa coach Peter De Villier's extraordinary response to the Schalk Burger eye-gouging controversy that saw the Springbok flanker suspended for eight weeks. De Villiers excited the ire of the IRB by maintaining that Burger's attack on the eye of Luke Fitzgerald was “all part of the game” before he compounded his lack of judgement by unleashing an extraordinary rant on Monday during which he claimed that Burger had been unfairly suspended, stressing that rugby is a contact sport and that anyone not accepting that should visit a “ballet shop” and start wearing tutus.

The fall-out saw the South African Rugby Union release a statement condemning eye-gouging in what amounted to an apology for and by their increasingly deluded head coach. That statement did not wash with O'Driscoll.

“When I heard those comments, I wondered how some-one can get away with something like that. Irrespective of any apology I find it an absolute disgrace that a coach of a national team can make comments about gouging being part of the game.”

“Some-one made a really good point to me that kids, or parents watching an interview like that, questioning whether they should have their kid play rugby or soccer, that's their decision made right there. To hear a national coach saying in any shape or form, gouging is acceptable in the modern day game is despicable. Essentially it brought the game into disrepute.”

De Villiers would not be drawn further on the controversy when he faced the media again yesterday. The Springboks delayed their team announcement for the third Test until tomorrow and yesterday's press conference included the news that they were appealing Bakkies Votha's two-week ban for a dangerous tour-ending challenge on Lions prop Adam Jones and that full-back Zane Kirchner and flanker Dewald Potgieter had been called up to the squad.